Duty
by TolkienGirl
Summary: Most people don't call John Winchester to account. Bobby Singer is not most people. Stanford-era, possible scenario for Bobby kicking John off his property with a shot-gun. Bobby, John, Dean, mention of Sam. No slash. Rated for language (a bit more than usual). And gun-pointing, I suppose.


**A/N: I have always loved imagining the scenario in which Bobby headed John off the property with a shot-gun. Here's one idea.**

**Disclaimer: you know. Not slash. Not mine. Not making money. The usual stuff.**

Bobby Singer knows cars better than he knows people. When he hears the throaty grumble of the Impala in the salvage-yard drive, he thinks it's convenient when the car's well-matched to the people who drive it.

Take the Impala. Shiny and distinctive and kept-together on the outside, sturdy and durable but kind of tired-as-hell if you knew where to look, and with a crapload of junk rattling around inside.

Well-suited to the Winchesters, that car is.

He strokes a finger down the yellowed page of the book on Shinto cleansing rituals, keeping up a pretense of reading only for himself. Sure, it's God's honest truth that seeing the Winchesters is a bright spot in a dingy life, for all their goddamn issues. But Bobby sometimes thinks the truth is best kept to oneself.

He opens the door on the second knock, so it doesn't look like he cares too much. John's filling the doorway like he always does, with Dean (as always) his shadow. But—

Bobby wrinkles an eyebrow. "Where the hell is Sam?"

He makes the mistake of looking at Dean first.

Kid winces at the mention of his brother's name, like Bobby'd slashed with a straight razor first and asked questions later. He tries to read the set, angled features, and what he sees is a punch to his gut. Dean is all raw edges of agony, worn down by something that looks more like despair than resignation.

Bobby cusses, soft and disbelieving between his teeth. "Where the _hell_ is Sam?"

John muscles past him, brow like a thundercloud, voice a matching rumble. "Not that it's any of your damn business, Singer..." he pauses, plants his feet. The floorboards creak beneath his boots. "Kid flipped out and took himself to college."

Bobby digests this. Watches Dean's eyes skitter across the room, familiar to him since childhood, as though he's found something new and distasteful here.

That's not it, Bobby realizes, after a moment. It's not what's here. It's what's not.

_Who's_ not.

"What college?" Bobby asks, and sure, it's a darn stupid question, with the John Winchester 10-cloud pile-up of a storm brewing, but he's just got to fill the silence.

"Stamford," John says, like the word tastes ugly in his mouth.

Dean stares at the floor. "Sta_n_ford," he says, real soft.

John wheels on him. "What?"

Dean lifts a shoulder about a millimeter. "'S got an 'n'," he mutters dully.

John's jaw locks up with annoyance, and something else. Bobby can't quite figure out what the something else is. (_He used to think he was good at reading people)_.

"I don't give a damn what the fool college is called," John grinds out.

Dean doesn't answer. Bobby remembers when that tone of his father's would have made him shrink, but he already looks like he can't get much smaller.

Bobby clears his throat. "I'll get out some beer."

He gets the beer and all three of them stand around holding it like the idjits they are. Don't even take a sip.

"You two have it out?" he asks, and then wonders if this is proof he's got a death-wish. John Winchester's a scary bastard, true enough, but Bobby Singer's been around the block. And he'll be damned if he doesn't get the whole story on Sam.

A muscle twitches in Dean's stubbled jaw, answering the question.

John shifts the beer from hand to hand, like he's forgotten you're supposed to drink the damn thing. "Took his crap and left."

There's a hell of a lot more to the story, Bobby can tell. He wonders if he should cut his losses. Sure, John's pissed as hell—which is just his way of mixing rage and guilt and desperation into one Molotov cocktail—but Sam's probably better off at Stam—Stanford (as long as people keep an eye on him, and Bobby knows they will). It would be a hell of a lot easier to just shrug and drink the darn beer, stop asking questions.

But then there's Dean.

God, Bobby can barely look at the kid.

"What'd you say to him, Winchester?"

There's a stony silence. John clears his throat. It's a gruff, aggressive sound, but Bobby takes it for the tell it is. Yeah, John's feeling the guilt. "Told him to stay gone." He shrugs like it doesn't matter, but somehow showing how much it does.

Dean doesn't make a sound, but Bobby sees the hand around his beer is white at the knuckles.

"Father-of-the-freakin'-year," Bobby fires off, which, yeah. He's been dumber, but not by much.

John's beer crashes on the floor, sending up a slosh of foam and glass. One of the dogs freaks out. Dean stares at the mess like he's mesmerized. Bobby thinks the hand around his beer is shaking.

Shell-shocked. That's what Dean is. Bobby doesn't know much about college, but it's barely September. Sam must have hightailed it less than a week ago.

Bobby doesn't have much time to analyze details more, however, because he's got a solid 200 pounds of John Winchester toe-to-toe with him. "I came here on business, Singer," he spits out, hot and hard as bullets. He hasn't mentioned what the business is, yet, but Bobby's not going to bring that up. John goes on. "Sam walked out on _us_. I told him to stay gone because you don't get to take the hell off from your _duty_. There's a job to be done. He can damn well do it or he can damn well not. His choice. But he only gets one."

It's almost the biggest load of crap Bobby's ever heard and he knows it and John knows it and well, obviously Dean knows it, but the kid's keeping mum.

Bobby's not afraid of John Winchester. "Your duty is to your kids, you stone-cold sonuvabitch." He says it quietly. The next words, even quieter. "You can hunt that demon into the ground, John. You can tear it to shreds and send every shred back to hell." He breathes out. "It's not gonna change a thing. _They're_ what you got left. Mary's gone."

There's a split second of stillness before the onslaught, during which time Bobby contemplates how he's been far safer in a vampire nest. Then John's got him by the collar, and holy hell, if he isn't being lifted off his feet and shaken like a dog.

Bobby puts up with a lot. Bobby doesn't put up with this. He gets free in a bit longer than he would have liked, grabs the Browning from behind the rocker, and presses the cold ring of the barrel into John's chest.

"You touch me again and it'll be the last damn thing you do, Winchester."

John stops. His face hitches in disbelief, and that something else that Bobby didn't understand before—and then Bobby thinks he looks a bit like Dean. Lost. Broken. But John's had longer to learn how to cover that up, and he does it so convincingly now that Bobby's sympathy gets lost in the mask.

"Shoot me, then," he growls.

"I've half a mind to."

"You haven't got it in you."

Bobby cocks it. It's for effect, and boy, does it have one. He hears Dean rag in a breath.

John's eyes are clouded with contempt. It does a real good job of hiding the hurt.

Bobby wants to say a lot of things. Wants to tell him to go get his son back—or better yet, leave him there, let him live his life...but not before he sits down and makes his peace with him. Wants to tell him he's a strong man but a broken father, a man who let duty fill the emptiness in his life so much that it started filling everything else, too. Wants to tell him that all the crap he's done can be forgiven and even forgotten, if he'll just let himself look, really _look_ at his boys—no matter how much it hurts.

Bobby wants to say a lot of things, but he knows better than to actually say any of them.

"Get the hell out of my house, Winchester," is as far as he goes.

John turns on his heel and stalks out, like he's not just been marched off by the business end of a shotgun. He pauses at the door. Won't look at Bobby. Just says, "Dean."

Dean's gaze volleys back and forth between his father and Bobby. Bobby feels something clench in his chest. The kid's hurting, and he wants nothing more than to tell him to stay.

He almost does, until he thinks that Sam probably asked him to come.

Dean doesn't leave people. They leave him. He waits for them to come back.

If Sam doesn't come back for his brother someday, Bobby thinks, in a sudden irrational turn, Bobby doesn't care how much he deserves a chance at this college thing. He'll drag the kid back himself.

He sees Dean set the unopened beer down on the battered countertop, real careful. Doesn't even make a clink.

Bobby wants him to stay, so that he can be free of the Winchester crap for a few days. A week, maybe.

But even that—it won't work. Dean follows his father. All Bobby's asking will do is bury another fish-hook in him (like they all do), tugging hard and cruel in opposite directions.

He won't do that. Not to Dean.

He lets Dean go, just as he made John go.

He hopes somehow it helps them both.

He never sees John Winchester again. But he sees his sons—both of them—and when he hears what John did he thinks the bastard knew his duty after all.


End file.
